When I first attempted to make money online I was so naive just like any newbie. But I learned from the school of hard knocks. I learned by trial and error and by just doing.
In the beginning I submitted my site to every search engine under the sun. I tried traffic exchanges, banner exchanges, FFA's, safelists, online classified ads etc. and not surprisingly I got zero results. If anything... I was very good at getting sp-ammed.
I wasted weeks and even months of my time with stuff that didn't work. But little by little I started to head in the right direction. I dropped all the stuff that didn't work and looked for other ways to bring traffic to my site.
I subscribed to a whole bunch of ezines and started posting fr-ee ads. The results weren't great but at least this time I was getting some results. My confidence started to build and I knew I was heading in the right direction.
Then I started to spend a little money on my business and used pay per click search engines and things really started to take off for me and my confidence grew more.
Then I started writing articles and press releases and and in the middle of all this I would spend time learning how to optimize my site for the major search engines to get a high ranking.
The sales started coming in regularly. But I didn't sit back. I wanted to convert more of my visitors into customers.
I added an opt-in form on my site to capture email addresses and set up an autoresponder to automatically follow up with my prospects. Eventually I added an alert box to capture email addresses which really exploded my mail list.
I started learning more about copywriting and experimented with different copy and headlines etc. on my site to get maximum results until eventually I had a consistent sales machine over at http://www.ineedsmokes.com
And when I had a sales machine that was on auto-pilot I then started pursuing other projects to make additional money.
But you know, it took alot of work to get to this point. It is a constant learning process and I still try to learn as much as I can because you never "know it all."
If you think you "know it all" you are finished because the internet changes so rapidly you'll quickly get left behind.
If you're new to online marketing... it won't happen for you overnight. It will take work, dedication and even sacrifice.
You need to keep working your business, be consistent and learn as much as you can about this internet marketing game and most importantly apply what you have learned.
Some techniques and tactics will work great in one business... but not in another. You won't know unless you try. Find the things that work for you and build upon it.
And eventually... you'll get there too.
About The Author
Al Martinovic publishes the Millenium Marketers Newsletter featuring powerful internet marketing concepts, killer strategies, useful tips, and no bull business advice. Subscribe Fr-ee Today: http://www.milleniummarketers.com